June At Barnstable, aged 47, John Hill, Surgeon. June . At Bath, Miss Gerrard, daughter of the late Mr Gerrard, Surgeon, Walcot, and authoress of a miscellaneous volume of Prose and Verse, lately published. July 3. At Ferney Hill in the county of Gloucester, the residence of her eldest son, Mrs. Cooper, relict of the Rev. Dr. Cooper, of Yar.nouth, in Norfolk, a daughter of the late James Bransby, Esq. of Shottisham in the same county. Exemplary in every stage of existence, humble, affable, benevolent, and devout; happy in the love and veneration of all around her, animated by Christian principles, and supported by Christian hope, she placidly expired after a short illness, in the seventieth year of her age, and left the memory of a bright example to her children and her friends. She was the author of several publications, some of which were printed many years ago, under the title of "Fanny Meadows," "The Daughter," "The School for Wives," and "The Exemplary Mother." July 6. At Hertford, aged 76, the Rev. John Carr, LL.D. translator of Lucian. July 9. At his house in Charlotte-street, Portland-Place, Noel Desenfars, Esq. a gentleman of great talents and knowledge, a liberal and enlightened judge of the Arts. July The Rev. Thomas Jones, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. July 14. George Saville Carey, the well-known Lecturer, of a paralytic attack. He was announced for an Exhibition on the same evening. Mr. Carey was by profession a printer, and one of those imprisoned on account of the notorious No. 45 of the North Briton. He was the author of the Balnea, (a description of the watering places in England) several Songs, &c. His father was the asserted author of the popular air of God Save the King. T. Bensley, Printer, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London. NUMBER XX. [Being Number VIII. of the New Series.] ART. I. Epigrams theological, philosophical, and romantick: Six Books. Also the Socratick Session, or the Arraignment and Conviction of Julius Scaliger: with other select poems. By S, Sheppard. London: Printed by G. D. for Tho. Bucknell, at the signe of the Golden Lion in Duck-Lane, 1651. Small 8vo. pp. 257. Before this printed tit' is placed an engraved frontispiece, with Apollo and his musical maidens on the biforked hill, supported by Martial and Ausonius, as columnar statues, and the author between their pedestals, sitting in an easy chair, and presenting his Look to Mercury in exchange for a garland of bays. This whole-length miniature of the poet seems to have eluded the lynx-eyed Grangerians, who press any head or tail-piece into the service of portraiture-illustration, though the resemblance be as shadowy as the air-drawn ghost of Banquo, and prove like that "unreal mockery." S. Sheppard (we are told by Mr. Recd *) was the son of Harman Sheppard, M. D. who died in 1639. Oldys, in his MS. notes on Langbaine, reports that this son was imprisoned at Whittington College for writing a paper, or news-book, called "Mercurius Elencticus."* During the prohibition of the stage, he published "The Committee-man curried;" a comedy in two parts, bearing stronger testimony to his loyalty than to his poetic genius, each part not being longer than a single act of a moderate play, and almost entirely stolen from other authors. His "Socratic Session" is another brief essay in a dramatic form, and is designed to castigate Scaliger, for his censures of the Greek and Roman bards. Mr. Malone, in his Shakspeare, X. 187, quotes from a production by Sheppard, entitled "Times displayed in six Sextiads,” 4to. 1646; but this I have never seen, nor can I trace it in any catalogue. His present publication bears a dedicatory inscription, which I think has been much praised for similitude of form, before the poems of Marvell: "If these epigrams survive (maugre the voracitie of time) let the names of Christopher Clapham, and James Winter (to whom the author dedicateth these his indeavors) live with them." This was published in 1648. An account of the first number may be seen in Mr. Chalmers's very curious chronological list of news-papers, ap pended to his Life of Ruddiman: but Oldys, probably, drew his report from the following quibbling piece of information, contained in the Epigrams of Sheppard. "My Imprisonment in Whittington, for writing Mercurius Elencticus, Most strange it seemes unto the vulgar rout, That that which thrust me in, should guard me out; My soule with no engagements clog'd, but thus My gaining life strook dead Elencticus." An An address to the reader then commences in the following terms: "CANDID AND COURTEOUS, "I here present to thy perusall a body of epigrams, and (least thou should'st mistake the worth of the gift, reflecting on the worthlessness of the giver) I cannot but inform thee that epigrams in all ages, have been oftener desired than attained, either for the paucitie of epigrammatists, or for the fluencie and delicacie they have ever exhibited: never but two amongst the Latines, viz. M ial and Ausonius, famous for their performances in things of this nature; and amongst us here in England, none in our native tongue (some pidlers excepted) save Bastard and Harrington, that have divulged ought worthy notice: the first of these deserved the lawrell; but the last, both crowning and anoynting. I confesse my selfe guilty of no lesse then treason against the soveraignty of Apollo, and the dig, nity of the Nine, to put forth any thing to publick view in this age of ignorance and ostracism of learning, when the Thespian fount is so pittyfully puddled, the sacred mount so sacreledgiously asassinated, and the Castalian cave become a covert for chattering magpies. The nominall doctor, that can scarce render an account of his faith, (if he were catechized) whether Galen dealt in druggs, or Paracelsus in simples, yet can make a shift to clime Parnassus, though at his descent his feet are so lame, all may perceive he deserves rather Helebore then Helicon. Oh Poesie! once so renowned, how hast thou forfeited thy pristine splendor!" To this address succeed commendatory verses by Arthur Estwich, Geo. Rosse, John Ridley, Andrew Dixon, Samuel Holland, and Vincent Howell. The epigrams extend to 173 pages, and are very few of them entitled to the general name they bear. The most interesting, from their connection with his contemporaries, are those which bear the following inscriptions. "To my beloved friend Mr. James Naworth. To James Nevill, Esquire. To my friend Theodor Vaux. "On my Selfe."-This is curious, 'Some look upon me as one rude, Am plac'd, and all the world do eye. Just in the planetary houre Of Saturne (who doth ever sowre) I view'd the light: it much doth win me; No way facetious am I, To toyish mirth or jollitie, Yet in one dreame I can compose A Comedy, in verse or prose; The jest, and the quaint plot commend, As serves to laugh my selfe awake,' Roberto Astonio Equiti poetæ eximio. On the two admirable wits, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Τα |